Body positive nude photo series celebrates love in all sizes

Note: This post contains nudity, but you should enjoy it, because it's Valentine's Day.

While we're being bombarded by chocolates and heart-shaped cards and lots of ads featuring happy couples celebrating their love with said chocolates and cards, there might be certain people feeling a little left out — and it's not just single people.

Substantia Jones is the creator of The Adipositivity Project, a photography series that highlights the beauty of people of varying sizes, racial backgrounds and gender identities, while also using it as a platform to discuss body politics. In her words, "the word ‘fat’ is a morally neutral descriptor. I use it, and I encourage you to."

Inspired by the Valentine's Day season, her latest addition to the series focuses on couples — namely people of color, fat people, the disabled, the LGBT community, the elderly or other group that may feel marginalized by mainstream media that highlights white, cis-gendered, physically fit couples we commonly see in TV commercials or print ads.

"It's become a means to juice up the holiday, to validate the relationships of the otherwise invisible, or to provide an alternative to the whole damn heart-shaped month of February...The unenlightened like to believe fat people are unworthy of love and long-term romantic partnerships. To that we say 'bite me'," Jones told Mashable.

The photos themselves not only send a message to the outside world, but they also have a personal importance to the people Jones photographs as well. Jones told Mashable that each couple she shot had a different reason for wanting to be photographed, but for many, their shoots were about achieving "self-acceptance" and body love.

"A visual reflection of ourselves in our extended environment is vital for happiness and well-being ... Marginalized populations — fat people, people of color, the disabled, the LGBT community, and older folks — too rarely see themselves represented in the media, and are even less often portrayed in a positive or neutral manner. So we must make our own visibility."

Jones also offered some sage words of advice about Valentine's Day — for those of us who don't fit the mold of those happy couples you see represented in those Kay commercials.

1. Personally, how do you feel about Valentine's Day? Do you have a special celebration for it?

"Man oh man, do I love love. Romantic love can be blindingly pleasurable, and hell yes it deserves its own holiday where we hoist it upon our shoulders and parade it around with naughty conversation hearts and flowers delivered at work. When I'm in a relationship, I dig Valentine's Day and all its cheesiness. When I'm not in a relationship, I still dig the cheesy! Because I know if I don't want to partake, I don't have to. If I get weary of the world becoming a sea of pink and red and floral lace, I can tune it out, or I can replace it, or I can make merciless fun of it. I may not be able to dismantle the billboards in Times Square, but I can certainly control how I process them. It may take work, but it's doable. I'm in charge of me."

2. How do you think all these Valentine's Day messages (ones conveyed in TV commercials and ads) effect us and how we perceive our bodies?

"Constant bombardment of imagery which doesn't reflect your personage can create body shame and it's been proven to cause health risk by fueling minority stress. While it's perhaps impossible to completely block these media messages, it's quite simple to add your own to your photo mixtape. Feed your eyes with positive and plentiful depictions of your tribe. A visual re-education. Lather, rinse, repeat until you feel mighty. Then keep it up. Or better, create your own positive depictions and help others with them. Worked for me."

3. How can someone who doesn't fit the mold — say they are part of one of the marginalized groups you talk about — navigate their way through these messages?

"You can make fun of the narrow ideals presented in Valentine advertising. You can subvert them. You can customize them to apply to you. You can block them out. I choose to stay mindful of the fact that the traditional trappings of Valentine's Day, while perhaps intended to be heteronormative, needn't be. Just because we're not often depicted in ads rolling around in roses and diamonds and chocolate-covered marriage proposals, doesn't mean we don't engage in those things. My advice is to go jolly well engage in them. At least the ones you find appealing.

Media outlets existing as a tool of the angst industrial complex will trot out the tired old Valentine advice for singles: 'Treat yourself to a quiet evening of wound-licking with a hot bath, a Michael Bublé album and a facial mask made from the happy tears of those who've just put a ring on it...' But I say screw that. Go deep.

If you want to improve and reward yourself, ponder your desires. Examine what it is you really want. Then plot how you're gonna get it. Even if you keep with the theme of couplehood, a deep contemplation may turn up a complete lack of desire to pair up. Or maybe you'd like to wait until you've accomplished [insert fancy goal here]. Or maybe you do indeed crave a romp. Perhaps even a romp with a white picket fence around it. You'll have then devoted some thought to sorting out your desires, not those the magazine ads tell you are yours. That lights the path to pursuing them.

Now isn't that better than an evening of overpriced beauty products and sad music?"

4. And the ever-looming question: What kind of advice would you give a person who is single on Valentine's Day?

"I say buy your own damn flowers and candy. Have a loud dinner with your squad, go out prowling for trouble, or just curl up at home with Netflix, thankful you're not out in your stockings and stilettos, trying to hail a cab in the 3-degree temperatures. Do it up big, or ignore it altogether. Just remember the choice is yours."

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